The present invention relates to an apparatus for securing personal effects, such as passports and credit cards, close to the body and in particular, to a pouch harnessed underneath a user's arm to protect the user from pick pocketing and wireless identity theft, while still being easily accessed by the user.
Travelers must often travel with a number of common personal effects, such as passports and credit cards, which must be frequently accessed while on the go. With our quickly evolving technological advances, the danger of “pick pocketing” is only one concern for today's travelers. Travelers must also be aware of wireless identity theft, which allows the thief to compromise an individual's personal identifying information without ever laying a hand on the victim.
Many credit, debit, or government issued identification cards are radio-frequency (RF)-enabled and carry a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag which contains electronically stored information. When the tags come into contact with radio waves, usually from a RFID scanner or reader, they respond by sending out a radio signal with information located in the tag. This information may be encoded personal identification information, including a person's name, address, Social Security Number, and credit card information. Radio frequency tagged cards are often preferred over magnetic strip cards because transactions can be completed more quickly.
One of the limitations of this technology is that thieves are able to take advantage of the REED tags by using RFID scanners or readers near a user's RF-enabled credit cards or passports, without their knowledge, to obtain personal identification information. With this information, a thief performs RFID identity theft without the victim ever knowing.